


beneath the burning sky

by noahfronsenburg



Series: montgomery [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: 4.5 Spoilers, 5 Times, Ambiguously Canon Compliant, Bozja Incident, Canon Disabled Character, Closeted Character, Dissociation, F/M, Family Member Death, Flashbacks, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gratuitous Headcanon, Loss of Identity, M/M, May/December Relationship, Non-Linear Narrative, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Parent Death, Parent-Child Relationship, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Hatred, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, gratuitous Latin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-20 02:08:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17613425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noahfronsenburg/pseuds/noahfronsenburg
Summary: "Promise me."(five times he couldn't save them, and one time he could)





	beneath the burning sky

**Author's Note:**

> as pilgrims on the scorching sand,  
>  **beneath the burning sky**  
>  long for a cooling stream at hand,  
> and they must drink or die.
> 
> Beta'd by @rethira. and then also @patrexes did it again (formatted to post because i was playing xii oop s) and yelled at me because of the quotation marks being turned sideways.
> 
> [189, montgomery](https://youtu.be/qda0HETbM_0)

i.

When the appointed hour for the test comes, Gaius leaves the helm of his airship and goes to look out the large window that backs the quarterdeck and looks northwest, toward Bozja. It is a cloudless night, unusual in Garlemald. For a moment, Gaius wonders what will happen when Midas flicks the switches and a new world, whatever it will be, begins. If anything at all will happen.

And then—

In his memories, it will be _simultaneous_ , a cacophony of sound and noise and light and _pressure_.

Far overhead, there is the briefest flash: a single dot of brilliant red light, like Dalamud has, for but a moment, flared to life. A single hanging breath, and then a beam, as fine as a laser cutter working carbon in the Academy workshops, stretches above Hydaelyn. It hangs in the sky like a thread, chaining earth to sky for the first time in almost four thousand years. For a heartbeat, it is gossamer, untouched, spiderweb, fine filigree and lace.

And then, all at once, it becomes a strip of fire as wide as the entire open bowl of the heavens. There is no period of growth, just _nothing_ and then the sky above them is no longer dark but _burning_ , in a blaze so bright the conflagration seems like to eat the world. Gaius has long enough for his eyes to register the change, and then he is blinded, reflexively throwing his arm up over his face to guard against a glare even his helmet cannot.

Snow and air hit them at once, pressure before the rapidly encroaching wall of unimaginable sound, and the ship almost nosedives, only barely correcting. A cacophony of chaos, screaming, and _noise_ so tremendous it defies definition takes the world by force.

As fast as it began, there is silence.

The sky above is as devoid of light and life as it was moments before, black darkness interspersed with stars, while far away the silver of the moon and the red of the satellite sit, untouched, ever-orbiting. Gaius blinks away the afterimages that are seared onto his vision, his eyes watering and his ears dulled as he wrestles his helmet off, wipes his tears on his sleeve.

“North!” he bellows, and even at the top of his lungs, his voice sounds as if it is underwater, ringing hollow. “Go north! As fast as you can!” Everyone else on the bridge is dazed, stunned, shaking—and they begin to go north, faster, faster, faster, _faster_ —

Dawn lights Bojza when they arrive, and it is to that rosy-fingered hue, pink crossing the horizon, that Gaius looks down at where the city once was, and he sees—

Nothing.

Not even a crater.

Just carbon dust, drifting in the sky like black snow, and the silence of the tomb.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

v.

Gaius stands in the command chamber of the Praetroium, leaning over the helm. He listens to the silence in his helmet, and breathes, and examines internally the hole that is cracking once more down the center of his chest, holding the shattered remains of his heart once again in his metaphorical hands. The sounds of chaos are piping through the comms, and he can hear the crackle of distant ceruleum fire. The war is not over. The war is still going on. There are still soldiers out there, dying for him.

But he remains still, rooted to the spot.

He can hear his heartbeat. His heartbeat, and static.

“Tribunus?” He tries it anyway, his own voice resounding in his head from within the confines of his helmet. There’s no answer on the comm, and behind him, he can hear Nero make a quiet noise that echoes down the channel, a noise that sounds somewhat like he feels. “Tribunus, respond.” Still nothing. Static crackle.

Gaius shuts his eyes.

“Livia?”

His voice doesn’t sound like itself. It sounds small, ragged, weak. It sounds a little bit like what it might sound like if his helmet was really as hollow as so much of Eorzea seems to think it is, and the body he still bears like a weight bearing him downward had already turned to dust, a shadow, hunting prey that turns upon it from every quarter with light.

Nero’s breathing is the static crackle in the comm. After a moment, he clears his throat. “I’ll send someone down to get her,” he says, and the echo of hearing it through the comm and through his helmet simultaneously is uncomfortable. Gaius nods, just slightly, just enough, the most he can bring himself to move, and he hears Nero’s footsteps retreat, the door clang shut behind him.

Left alone, Gaius bows his head until it hangs below his shoulders, and thinks of how boys who run away to be soldiers when they’re still children are not supposed to come home. How they are always meant to die at the end of every story—them, not the family they leave behind. The boys come home in coffins, the family wails and mourns.

The boys do not come back to find their homes empty.

Again, again, Eorzea has stolen another beloved from his arms, and he wonders, not for the first time, if any of this has ever been worth it.

 

 

iv.

Gaius has cultivated a life of a man explicitly disinterested in conspicuous consumption: he can count the things which matter to him as physical objects on the fingers of one hand, and they all serve purposes. But compared even to that, the Legatus’ apartments at Castrum Novum make Gaius seem as bad as the entirety of the court, combined.

There are four rooms. Three are empty. The fourth holds a bed, a mannequin for Nael’s armor, a desk with accompanying chair, and a bookshelf.

And Nael.

The Legatus looks up when Gaius stops in the doorway. Nael has discarded all armor, all trappings of office, and wears only a loose shirt and a kilt, sleeves rolled up past the elbows. When Nael sees Gaius standing there, patiently waiting, he gets given a look of pursed-lip annoyance. “Who let you in.” It is not a question.

“I did. I knocked. The door was unlocked.”

“Get out, van Baelsar.” Nael stands, comes over, and gestures him out. “Good night.”

Gaius does not budge. “I am here to speak with you, and here I will remain until we’ve spoken.” He would cock a brow at Nael, but his helmet is still on. “Unless you’ve no time for your allies any longer?”

The tendon in the side of Nael’s jaw twitches.

“I’ve no refreshments. Take that damn helmet off, and be brief.” Nael turns and goes back to his work. Gaius’ eye is caught by how much weight loss the braid pulling Nael’s skin taut reveals. It is not armor alone that has sapped the color from Nael’s cheeks, given an almost-fevered look to the light in Nael’s eyes.

Gaius has seen the look before; but then, he thought it just part and parcel of the man who wore it.

He pulls his helmet off and holds it under his arm, falling to parade rest—if Nael means to intimidate Gaius as he does his own subordinates, he has a very long way to go. Nael has not a third of Solus’ presence, and Gaius may be _old_ , but he is not old enough to be unable to stand, however much it makes his knees ache. “How goes Meteor?” Gaius asks, his voice studiously even. “Progressing?”

“You hate the project. Why are you wasting needless words on inquiring towards its success?” Nael pauses, straightens, and looks back at Gaius. He wishes, not for the first time, that Nael had been given a different life—a different set of opportunities. A chance to be just _Nael_ , before anything else, rather than wearing this role, this ghost, that has been bound to Nael part-and-parcel with a suit of Legatus’ armor.

Gaius grits his teeth. “I am _worried_ , although perhaps the concept seems ludicrous to you. It is not so long ago that Midas died. You think I would not notice the same change in your own demeanor?” Nael looks discomfited by the thought: the alien concept that Gaius would care enough to have watched. “I came to remind you that should you find yourself in need, the XIVth remains your sister legion, honor-bound to support you. Do not hesitate to call upon us should you need us.”

“Yes, of course.” Nael snorts. “To sabotage Project Meteor, I assume. Still not given up hopes of ruling Eorzea, Gaius? You’re certainly a glutton for punishment.”

His patience wears thin.

“I can see,” Gaius says after a moment spent marshaling himself to hold an even tone to his voice, “That my help is unwanted. I will not waste empty words on you, van Darnus. I bid you good evening.” Nael does not look up as he goes, does not share any parting words, and it is only later, flying back over Eorzea and looking out the window at the ground as it speeds beneath them, that Gaius begins to wonder why he even bothers to try, if the world is so full of people who would happily speed themselves to their doom all on their own.

 

 

ii.

Gaius knows what he looks like, but still, seeing his reflection in the mirror sheen of the lift doors is discomfiting. He’s wearing a shirt he’s barely tucked in, collar half-unbuttoned. Breeches. A coat, a size too wide for him, not even properly clasped. His scarf is barely hanging on around his neck. His boots are probably ten or fifteen years old; the last pair he bought to wear as a civilian, because that was the last he _had_ a life as a civilian. He has not slept in three days. He is shaking, with cold and fear and shock.

He does not even know where his uniform is. Along with it is the life he has built; the life he has lost track of, burned out of him by the ashes of the dead. Even now, he feels like he is on the field of battle, in the thick of the firing line, ilms from death, his body running with the adrenaline of the hunt, screaming of danger.

He looks at the lift buttons and thinks about the number of times he has pushed  _9_ , ridden the lift up, and met Mid inside, his hair a wild shock uncombed from two days without sleep and his blue eyes bright with fire.

He pushes the _4_ instead, and soon enough finds himself before the door at the end of the hallway, marked with _C. Garlond_ and _N. Scaeva_. He knocks.

A moment later, the door opens. Nero stares back at him, the usual thumbprint grey circles pushed beneath his eyes, his curly hair drooping and shaggy, badly in need of a cut. There is some kind of motor oil on his cheek and forehead, in the mark of five fingers, as if he fell asleep with his head in his hand. He blinks at Gaius.

“Is Cid awake?” Gaius says.

“Practicum ends tomorrow,” Nero replies, as if to say, _what are you, stupid?_ and Gaius remembers abruptly that these young men are taking their final examinations. Examinations that now do not have a proctor.

“Is he...” Gaius fishes for the right words, suddenly tongue-tied before this baleful, ghostlike young man, not yet grown into his height. “Finished?” Nero looks at him, this time, like he is drunk.

“It’s never _finished_ ,” he mutters, ill-tempered. “Nothing is ever finished. Why. Do you need him?”

“Just let me in,” Gaius settles on, too tired to go ten rounds with Cid’s guard-dog of a roommate (boyfriend?), who moves aside so Gaius can enter. Nero goes ahead of him, back to the mess of strewn ceruleum pumps, nuts, bolts, mechania, and paper that passes for his desk, and is absorbed utterly again moments later.

Cid is on his bed, hollow-eyed, nursing a cup of coffee, and whacking a pipe with a wrench. He looks up when the door clicks hut, and his face lights when he sees Gaius standing there. He’s half off the bed before he realizes he still has the wrench and the pipe, and tosses both back onto the bed, sets the coffee aside on his bedside table, shoving aside three different stacks of books, eight empty mugs, one magitek lamp, and two pens.

“Gaius,” he says. Cid’s voice has dropped more again, closer to his father’s, and what once would have pressed upon him heady joy at the boy’s growth into the man he wants to be instead makes him feel hollow. “When did you get here? _Why_ are you here? Father said you were going back to Ala Mhigo.”

Nero stops chewing his pencil to stare back over at both of them.

Of course—he’s never seen Gaius without his helmet before. He did not grow up in the Legatus’ shadow, part and parcel with the ghost of an absent father.

“Cid,” Gaius says, and his voice comes out hoarse and shaky. He takes three shaky steps forward, and pulls the boy into his arms. Cid is unusually stiff for a moment, but then he returns the hug, and Gaius feels relief beyond reckoning at the reassurance Cid is _alive_ , well, solid, unhurt. Safe. _Safe_ , safe here in Garlemald. He bends over, presses his forehead to the young man’s crown, and shuts his eyes.

He takes in a shaky breath, and lets it back out. He does not cry, not here, not now.

But it is a near thing.

(That will come later, in the empty, oppressive silence of Mid’s bedroom, when Gaius finds he forgot his damn glasses again, tossed them haphazardly into the lee at the side of his mattress against the bed frame. Then, he will break down, curl into himself and cry in ugly, jagged wails. Then, he will sob until he feels sick, parched, nauseous, and horribly, horribly _lonely,_ his world adrift at its mooring and his axis torn from his poles.)

But now, he takes a deep breath, and composes himself. He lets Cid go, and gently sits him down on the edge of his bed.

“Has something happened?” Cid asks, watching Gaius with his eyes—bright blue, and while they may not share a color they are so alike to Gaius’ own in that moment that it haunts him.

Gaius sits there, holding Cid at arm’s length, and wonders how he is supposed to end Cid’s world. What comes out is this:

“Midas is dead.”

For a single held breath, Cid does not respond. He sits there, exhaustion giving way to raw horror as the information seeps in. It goes in slow trickles, bit by bit, until it hits, and then the look on his face shifts, his eyes going wide, his jaw clenching and then dropping, his entire face changing color to something as pale as the snows.

“What,” he whispers, trembles, tugs at Gaius’ sleeve. “No. No. No, it can’t—no—”

“I’m sorry,” Gaius says, like he can undo it. “I did not want you to—I could not bear it if you had to learn from a dispatch.” Cid is still staring at him, raw-faced and empty, shaking like a leaf. His voice cracks. “I cannot even tell you why.”

Gaius feels like he is standing inside a tomb.

“When?” Cid asks, finally, his voice a dying whisper.

“Three days ago.”

The stormfront breaks. Cid puts his face in his hands, and before Gaius can even move, Nero’s desk chair is squeaking on the floor, and he’s across the room in two long strides, Cid grabbing onto the front of his shirt like it’s the one thing that keeps him from drowning. Cid breaks down wailing in Nero’s arms, his face pressed into the side of his neck and sobbing as Gaius wraps an arm around his shoulders, and just holds on for dear life.

He once heard Solus speak of _fides quae creditur_ and _fides qua creditur_ , that which is believed and that which makes it possible to believe. Holding Cid as his childhood dies, Gaius understands for the first time how the gifts of empire can turn upon their makers, and he wonders if he can truly call children mourning for the ghosts of parents they lost years before _progress_.

 

 

iii.

The first thing Gaius does when he enters the Emperor’s apartments is salute, and Solus sighs. “Always so serious, Gaius.” He gestures to the accompanying couch beside him. “There is such a thing as simply wishing to share a drink with an old friend?” Gaius glances to the table—an open bottle of wine sits there, airing, two glasses full. He purses his lips.

“Aye, but not usually one you are willing to recall from Ala Mhigo to the capital for the sole purpose of a drink.” Gaius replies, in lieu of agreeing to play whatever game Solus is playing, and Solus folds his hands over his chest, goes quiet.

“Sit down.” It is an order. Gaius comes over, sets his helmet down beside him, and takes one of the wineglasses because he may as well _enjoy_ the toast if he came all this way for it. They drink in silence for a time; long enough that Gaius begins to feel the tension sapping from the squared line of his shoulders. He’s spent many hours in Solus’ apartments, and it is a place he has grown comfortable with. Their friendship is something he _values_ in a way he does little else these days, and there is no purpose to being abrasive. He’ll never win any contest on it; Solus is always the most annoying man in the room.

Finally, Solus speaks. “How is that girl you picked up—Livia, wasn’t it? I heard she made Centurion.”

Gaius finishes his first glass, and pours a second. “She takes to command as a fish does to water.” He glances up at Solus, who is watching him, one white eyebrow cocked. “The way she acts around me and the other Tribunii reminds me somewhat of myself with you, when I was her age.”  
  
Solus snorts. “Taking after you in all the most unfortunate ways. Color me surprised.” He lifts his glass slightly, watching the light filter through the wine. “If the world refuses to bow, _make_ it, and barring that, open the door yourself. She certainly repeats your history with exactitude.”

Gaius refrains from pointing out _he_ was Tribunus younger than Livia, as was Solus. Livia is young, and has clawed her way to her rank not with his patronage but with her own steel, although he is certain there are many who resent her for it and suspect otherwise.

Most promotions aren’t given with a blow job on top of a corpse, even if he had made the best of it, and Gaius will not repeat the sins of the past if he can help it.

Solus laughs. “So she and Nero must get along like a house on fire.” Gaius finds himself cracking a smile. “Is she in his cohort?”

“No; I have her with Rhitatyn in hopes she might learn temperance. Nero thinks her hardly a child at the best of times. Her impatience brings out the worst in him.”

“ _Nero_ is hardly a child at the best of times.”

“He’s nearly thirty, Sir.”

“Yes, and when you send me a single letter without half a page devoted to his antics, I will consider it moot.” Gaius cannot argue with facts, so he just scowls at his wine. “I’ve received precious few of your missives of late. I find I am beginning to miss your four pages devoted to diatribes on the dangers of a failing wheat harvest.”

“Not all of us have a functioning Senate and fourteen legions doing the majority of their governing for them. Ala Mhigo takes most of my time.” Gaius glances at Solus. “Have you given any further thought to naming a successor?” Solus replies with a noncommittal noise, which was annoying when he was forty and at seventy is simply absurd. “Sir, you are not getting any younger.”

“ _Yet_ ,” Solus replies, with careful, cryptic nonchalance in a tone that makes the fine hairs on the back of Gaius’ neck stand on end. “I had such high hopes you would marry Calpurnia and I could just put you on the throne, but beggars cannot be choosers. I cannot say that any of the myriad throng exactly inspire enthusiasm. The best have either done themselves in or been put down like rabid dogs at the end of your blade.”

“Why?” Solus finishes, glancing over at him. “Did you have someone in mind?”

Gaius hesitates, hedging his bets before he speaks. “Varis has...potential.”

Solus makes another noncommittal noise rather than answer properly, and rings the bell by his divan. A servant comes in with another bottle of wine. Once the servant is gone, Solus strokes his beard, letting Gaius wrestle the bottle open. “Varis has potential, yes, but he must needs get his house in order before looking outside its walls. That _boy_ of his is a problem.” Gaius purses his lips and drains his cup. Solus is watching him, eyes sharp and focused beneath his heavy brows. “You have thoughts, Legatus?”

“A decimation is a  _punishment_. Not _sport_.”

“And what would you have Varis do?” Solus’ voice is light and teasing. “How did you put it once? ‘Treat him as a beast of burden?’”

“If the dog is rabid, you put it down. If Zenos cannot be leashed...” Gaius looks at Solus, and their eyes meet. Neither of them say anything, but the point hangs above both of their heads: one step closer to the throne would take Zenos from a _problem_ to a  _tyrant_.

Solus half-smiles at him. “You came unprepared for that threat. Where is your blade?”

“With Nero.” Gaius runs a hand over his face. “The damn sand keeps damaging the interior works. He’s been fussing with it for near a week now. He insists on reminding me that it’s almost an antique when it comes to magitek.” Solus laughs. “But if that is what you want, My Lord—”

“No,” Solus waves a hand. “If Varis wants to beat his uncle to the throne, he knows what it will require of him. A man cannot stand atop the world if he is unwilling to make some sacrifices. Either he can solve the problem, or he cannot be Emperor. It is as simple as that.”

When one empty bottle of wine has become three, Gaius is relaxed, lulled into what he knows is a false sense of security. He has lived enough years in the shadow of Solus zos Galvus to know when the man is playing him. But still.

“I have missed this,” Gaius says at last. “It has been too long since we simply sat and talked, you and I.”

“Time waits for no man,” Solus agrees. “Especially not we two, with precious little of it. We have earned the brief respite, do you not agree?”

“Yes,” Gaius sets his glass down. “You have done an admirable job of convincing me not to question why you brought me here, Solus.”

“I suppose I can only wish you would fall for my distraction,” Solus sighs, and he sounds almost...wistful. “But you are right.” He sets his glass down as well and sits up properly. “Nael van Darnus came to speak with me.”

Gaius, his inhibitions lowered, scowls. “Nael should not be Legatus of the VIIth. It should have gone to Regula tol Hydrus.” It is an argument they have had before and, no doubt, shall have again. Solus looks frustrated with his bringing it up again, but does not stop Gaius. “I do not know why you insist on not allowing Regula’s promotion. Varis has put him up thrice, and he has more than earned it. Were it any other Tribunus—“

“Varis cannot just promote out of affection,” Solus frowns at himself as he says it, as if he disagrees with his own words on principle, especially given it is Gaius who sits beside him. “The men beneath Regula do not respect him, and a Legatus without command of his troops has no command at all.”

“And Nael has command of the VIIth?” Gaius shoots back. “Nael’s hardly more than a child, with no previous rank or experience.” But Solus does not respond; does not even look contrite.

Instead, he says: “Nael asked for my permission to proceed with further testing of Project Meteor.”

Gaius’ heart has seemed to cease to beat, and he stares, unseeing, at the wall fifteen fulms in front of him, unblinking. His fingers and toes are numb. His lungs feel as if they are tied with weights and filled with water. He cannot move. He cannot blink. He cannot hear. He’s drowning and—

All he can see is light. So much light. Blinding, horrible red light, the sky burning, lancing across the horizon.

“—tion but to allow Nael to pursue it, and the first findings have already been significant. I do not know if Bozja was a fluke, but I have passed the matter to the Senate, and allowed them the liberty of debate. It would do ill to repeat the sins of the past without any attempt at seemingly solving the matter. I thought it mete to warn you, rather than let you learn of it from—”

“No.”

Solus stops talking. Gaius is still not looking at him, for he cannot bear to. His fingers are digging into his thigh so hard that it hurts even through his armor. Gaius is shaking. He swallows, and his throat is very dry. “No,” he says again, and his voice does not sound like his own. It sounds tinny and small, echoing from far away. He sounds like a much older man, a man speaking with his death rattle. “You cannot.”

“You do not dictate what I can and cannot do,” Solus returns without heat. “Nael has shown that Dalamud is capable of solving the problem Eorzea still presents us if deployed correctly. It is an opportunity that cannot be ignored.”

“We saw what that _thing_ is capable of.” His hands are shaking. It has been almost eight years, and he still feels as if he will wake up some morning and it will never have happened. Gaius looks at Solus, wishing he could see the Emperor with younger eyes. But Solus now is an old, broken, tired man, his skin sallow and flecked with liver spots, his eyes no longer bright with the fervor of conquest as they had once been. The ideals of their youth have withered and died under the cold, unforgiving light of age.“You cannot truly mean this.”

Solus looks back at him without any pity, his face devoid of expression, and finally, perhaps humbled, looks away. “If I must,” he says at last, his voice heavy with regret. “You once said that I am not a man given to needless waste. If the eikon threat can be ended—”

Gaius stands. Solus has gone as still and silent as Gaius feels, and he salutes the Emperor stiffly and without emotion.

“By your leave, Your Radiance.”

“So,” Solus says, just as dispassionate. “This is how you would end this.” Gaius does not respond. He does not give even an ilm in this battle of wills, his rage flash-cooled to something harder than steel. Neither of them move, neither of them speak; they stand upon either side of a crossroads and watch the years draw apart. The silence grows weary and thin.

An age passes, for both of them. One ends and one begins anew, and this time, they do not share the van.

“Go,” Solus says at last, and Gaius replaces his helmet and leaves.

He does not even once look back.

 

 

0.

The last night of the part of Gaius’ life that he later comes to think of as _before_ ends without fanfare, when Mid collapses into bed at half-three, false dawn’s light peeling in through the windows. Mid smells like grease and oil and ceruleum and Gaius’ shampoo—he didn’t look at the damn bottles again—and Gaius groans aloud when Mid’s freezing toes dig into the side of his ankle, waking him the rest of the way up from his torpor.

Gaius throws his forearm over his eyes and groans.

“I had so hoped I would not wake you,” Midas says, almost-apologetically, and Gaius could believe it if Mid did not say this _every_ night. He presses a stubbly kiss to Gaius’ temple, falls bonelessly onto his chest, hand sneaking across his stomach and sliding underneath the rucked-up hem of his shirt, his fingers as cold as his feet.

“When has that ever happened,” Gaius replies, hoarse and half-asleep still, one arm falling over Mid’s side where the other man nestles into his shoulder, sharp chin dug into his armpit. “Your hair’s still wet.”

“Drying took too long, and I fain could keep my eyes unlidded.” Mid just needs to cut it again. When he falls asleep with it wet, he wakes up with one side stuck comically straight up. Usually the side he crams into Gaius’ armpit all night. “I found I could not stray from your side even but a moment longer. You looked bereft without me.”

“Freezing cold fingers do not endear you,” Gaius runs his hand down Mid’s back, yawns, turns toward him slightly, their orbits aligning once more. “You ready?”

“Oh, near as, near as. There’s still calculations, of course, but it’s impossible to do so with precision when the relative aetheric qualities of the atmosphere may fluctuate significantly given the weather between now and then. There is no purpose to attempting to preempt the clouds, but—“

“Midas,” Gaius mutters. Mid stops, tilts his face up so their lips brush. His fingers dip below Gaius’ waistband, and his hands are warm _now_. Warm enough that Gaius does not stop him. “Shut up.”

Mid chuckles into his mouth when their lips meet. “Make me,” he murmurs, half-laughing, “Or I shall be forced to regale you with mathematical quandaries until such time as you simply pass out.”

Gaius wakes the morning after, pleasantly sore. They dress together, sorting their things apart, and split their separate ways after a rushed and hasty breakfast. Mid once again isthe Chief Architectus—with one side of his hair still sticking up—and Gaius is encased into armor, heart packed away secure and safe in his chest.

Mid makes it all the way down the hallway to the airship landing at the Academy before he reverses his steps, comes over, and squeezes Gaius’ arm through his armor, fingers tight about his bicep. Grins at him, with that mad-eyed brilliant look that lights his face up and makes him look like the magitek engineer Gaius first met on the field of battle twenty years ago, cackling like the world was ending.

“Promise me you will raise your eyes toward the heavens and set them as if with a lede to north,” Mid says, his voice almost shaking with his excitement. “You _must_. I expect the fullest of reports after all is done. Such a sight has not been seen for a millennia, and I would have it recorded for posterity. You must give unto me that which I will be unable to see for myself. _Promise me,_ Gaius.”

They are the last words Midas nan Garlond ever says to him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

vi.

The boy watches him with wary eyes from across the sea of corpses.

He can tell at a glance that this young man is the leader of his party. Four total: two footsoldiers, anonymous and unimportant, likely to not survive the night. Their Centurion—a scion of the Priscus family, or he is going blind and senile as well as mad out in this hellshole. The Centurion has the same too-narrow face and wide eyes as did his grandmother, looking forever-startled even when she was not.

Their deference toward their Eorzean companion is unusual. Few and far between are the Garleans who treat Eorzeans with any respect at all, least of all an  _arcanist,_ using aether as if breathing.

Their parties face one another down as the smell of burning ceruleum fills the air. Himself, with curiosity, but Priscus and the Eorzean both look back at him with confusion—and _suspicio_ _n_.

No; not just an Eorzean. There are no coincidences.

“Well, well...” he muses quietly, “I did not think to meet an Eorzean in this place, let alone a Scion.”  _There are no coincidences—_ what other Eorzean would cross the world, fight off the Empire’s finest, and come out the other side almost unharmed but one of their finest order? The young man’s face clears from suspicion to surprise.

“You know of me, sir?”

He gives the young man an unflattering smile. Ah, the Scions. Enemies met across the lines of battle first and then the unmakers of his glory second, a gift for which he never asked. Without the Scions, he would still be a thrall to the false promises of the Ascians. But he cannot find it within himself to truly be willing to  _thank_ them for that.

“I have some small...history with your order,” he settles on, a non-answer, and a glance at the young man reveals the Elezen is giving him a look that is one acknowledging his half-lie while knowing it for what it is. He straightens again. “But I would speak of the present. Know you your assailants? And the severity of your predicament?” They are not just standing amidst the bodies of the nameless dead; these corpses, smoking and cooling, bleeding red puddles that crystalize the aethersand beneath them. These are the cream of the crop. The best of the Legions.

“The soldiers bore the insignia of the Emperor’s personal guard,” Priscus speaks, and the fear in his voice matches the wide-eyed confusion of his expression. The Centurion is frightened, prey looking for somewhere to hide, and he cannot blame the man. _Fear_ is the first thing that makes you mortal. Not love, not hope, but  _fear_.

As long as you fear something, you must in turn love something. You cannot fear if you no longer care for the world. You cannot fear if you find yourself dead inside.

He learned _that_ lesson the hard way.

The boy scowls, a dark look that ages his fair face unduly, a line already furrowing between his brows in a way that reminds him suddenly of other young men with intentions too great for their chances in the world. “And I could venture a guess as to their motive.” A self-aware young man, already sure of what forces he is courting. Best for him to be ready when the axe falls. “But you have us at a disadvantage, sir,” he continues, and he looks up. Their eyes meet for the first time.

The force of that gaze is blistering, and it cuts him to the quick, without the slightest allowance for hesitation. It is the look of a man who has seen hell and fire. It is a look he knows intimately well, for it is the one he bears upon his own face.

“Will you not tell us who you are?” It is phrased as a question, this innocent-sounding query. A question, aye, but one that holds in it the key to his unmaking.

“Our names are not yours for the asking.” _His_ name, his secret, is not for the giving, not for the taking. It is an identity he feels no longer fits him, a skin that shriveled and died in the flames, yet another thing lost in the fire, another charred cinder that clings to him like a burr. “As for our purpose, let this be your answer.” He unhooks one of the black masks from his belt and throws it into the sand between them, a peace offering to act as a signature upon a writ of allegiance, when their names are not the proof of trust.

The Elezen stares at the mask as if he does not believe his eyes. His intake of breath is loud in the soundless void of the Burn, caught up by only the wind. “An _Ascian_ mask!” He whispers, unmoving, stunned, before he looks back up, his face rendered young once more by his shock.

“The face of our prey,” he says, and kicks sand over it, another anonymous face buried and lost in the wilds. In the distance, there is a whine of blades, another ceruleum engine. He glances towards it, then back to the other survivors. “We must away before more arrive.” He does not have the luxury of making a stand against the elite of the Empire, not when there is so much that yet remains unfinished.

He gestures to his companions and they move out. He spares a glance over his shoulder at the four men who watch him, still in the way that only those torn between two future poles can be. “Come with us or stay, but make your choice now.”

The four look at one another—or, perhaps, more accurately, the three Garleans look to the Elezen, and it is only now that he remembers which Scion this is. Not any of the Archons, whose faces he knows well; Thancred, Papalymo, Y’shtola, Yda, Louisoix, Minfilia, Urianger. These are the members whose hunting he has overseen twice, some few among their number once honored guests in his Castrum. But there was one among the number of Scions during his last year in Eorzea who was never captured, whose face remained unknown to them. Louisoix’s grandson.

The name comes to him in another half moment of thought. _Alphinaud_. Alphinaud Leveilleur. Who stands here, within enemy territory, guarded by three half-loyal Garlean Populares allies, a creature formed from his own life-force and aether, and—

Alphinaud looks back to him after a moment conferring with his companions, and his gaze is depthless. Meeting his eyes is a battle of wills, a force far outweighing his slender, still-growing body, and it has been many years since he has seen someone with a look like that. It reminds him of—

“Indeed,” Alphinaud says, unblinking, holding his gaze caged. “We accept your offer,” he hesitates then, and the weight, the pressure of his force of will, is lost in the tender confusion of youth. “Uh.”

He smiles. “Shadowhunter will suffice for the present.” He beckons to them. “Come.”

The ink, still wet on the treaty of alliance, dries.

Without hesitation, he binds his soul once more to that of Eorzea, and challenges Hydaelyn to tear him free from it again. _T_ _his_ time, he stands, if perhaps not firmly on her side, at least facing the dawn, rather than the darkness.

His shadow casts behind him now, rather than ahead.

 

**Author's Note:**

> https://jonphaedrus.carrd.co


End file.
